Four Movies That All Made Me Rethink How Politics Work
Water Wars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSxaVcJ1sDA&feature=related
Food Inc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0
Why We Fight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3skfTv04K8
Inside job
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk
It will change ones perspective of who is truly in power very very fast.
A Classic
This still makes me laugh every time I see it
How Far Does The Notion Of Group Rights Stretch?
Being a Political Science and Philosophy student a lot of the work I do revolve around the notion of group rights and what that means… which is a fascinating topic. Does being a part of a certain group give the individual certain rights? When can one truly claim to belong to a specific identity? How does a society tackle being tolerant against intolerant groups? In which way should society accommodate or reject requests from independent groups? And the list continues.
The following article is made from a paper I wrote that surveys the Nothing About Us Without Us Policy of the disabled community. The Paper explores what the consequences would be should the policy be interpreted narrowly opposed to the very liberal way its been generally used since its emergence in the 1990’s. What is interesting about the paper is that it shows how group rights can be a strong tool for empowerment if implemented in one way, but a tool for control if interpreted in another fashion. Overall I believe the question of who gets to say “what” about “Whom” and “how” is important because it forces both the subject and the publisher to rethink their position in the world and in relation to one another? Further does it ask can we truly understand the experience of someone else outside of our own subjective position?
“Nothing About Us Without Us”
A request for Inclusion Not Extremities
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 was the product of a long struggle for civil rights that began in the early 1950s, continues into present-day society, and was inspired and supported by various civil rights groups. Although many of the causes that these groups fought for have been achieved, the issues surrounding the disabled community were not officially recognized until the approval of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The field of disability studies is still fairly young; many in the general public remain ignorant of its discourse. As Walter Ben Michael’s book The Problem With Diversity (2011) describes, Americans have an easier time discussing and embracing difference of race than difference of class. This is interesting because although Americans love to embrace diversity, disability is still very much a taboo in American society. Disability is generally silenced, poorly portrayed, ignored and highly discriminated against as we beautifully described in the work Why I Burned My Book (K. Longmore 2003). Although the field of disability studies is growing, various articles by Garland-Thompson and several other academics have shown that there is still a vast problem of misrepresentation. Because of this, the disability community developed a slogan: Nothing About Us Without Us. This generally means that whenever someone chooses to discuss disability in one way or another, the disabled community demands to be involved in the process in order to make sure that they are portrayed accurately. “Nothing About Us Without Us” is typically displayed in the disability community as a demand for inclusion in debate. But there are that who take the policy further and interprets the policy very narrowly. There is a minority of the disability community that believes that all research and published material should only be done by people with disabilities as seen through research asking who can be allowed to study disability (Kitchin 2000). We see examples of narrow interpretation of the policy through statements from Disability Rights Movements advocate Ed Roberts who famously said: “When others speak for you, you lose” (Charlton p.3). The Policy has further typically been narrowly interpreted by the deaf community as we see in the movie Sound And Fury where the protagonists insists that able-bodied people never will be able to understand the deaf experience (Aronson 2001). The following paper will explore the more extreme version of the “Nothing About Us Without Us” policy and survey the dilemmas it creates in perspective to inclusion and the multicultural society. As we shall see, although the “Nothing About Us Without Us” is a reflection of the community’s desire to be empowered, the policy creates a number of conflicts in relation to liberalism, democracy, multiculturalism and freedom of artistic expression should it be interpreted very strictly.
The doctrine of “Nothing About Us Without Us” is a reaction to centuries of discrimination against people with disabilities. In her article “Disability History, Power and Rethinking the Idea of ‘the Other’”, J. Kudlick describes how disability as an academic field jumped from infancy to adulthood without going through the typical stages of acceptance and struggle that other emancipation and empowerment movements had gone through before it (Kudlick p.557). Because of this sudden leap from scarce academic work to a fully developed field of research there is a large disconnect between what disability advocacy groups and academics know about disability compared to the general public’s knowledge. This also means that there is a large gap in the way the public ought to be thinking of disability and the way the public actually is thinking about disability (Kudlick p.558). Because of this gap in awareness and the continuous misrepresentation of disability in movies and literature as discussed by Garland-Thompson (2005), the disabled community sees a need to reinvent itself in the eye of the public. In the movie When Billy Broke His Head and Other Tales of Wonder, we are presented with a view of the disabled community as a strong and intellectual political force that continuously becomes ignored by lawmakers and the general public (B & Simpson D.E 1995). The movie also shows how people with disability are subject to the stereotype that they are miserable, alone, and desiring death, when in reality, according to the film, the disabled community is powerful, strongly-knit, supportive and inclusive. People with disability are subject to the consequences of the modern interpretation of the word “normal”. In other words, the public sees disability as a distortion of normalcy when it should be seen as human variation (Garland-Thompson 2005). According to “Rethinking Disability” (2010), ableism (the idea that able-bodied people are superior to disabled people) is a major problem in society and people with disabilities are often ascribed the status of second class citizens: they become burdens that take more than they contribute to society (p.18). Because of this discrimination and constant misrepresentation, in 1993 the South African disability movement came up with a doctrine on how discuss disability and create more accurate portrayals of the community (Charlton p.3). This idea stemmed from a political campaign run by underrepresented minority groups in the new Eastern European democracies. The South African movement for disability rights and later the U.S DRM (Disability Rights Movement) decided to obtain the slogan “Nothing About Us Without Us” as front for their policy because they believed it reflected their agenda of eliminating disability invisibility and misrepresentation (Charlton p.3). Ed Roberts, one of the international leaders of the DRM, believed the slogan and inherent policy within it spoke to an important lesson learned from other civil rights movements: “When others speak for you, you lose” (Charlton p.3). In other words, when non-disabled people speak for disabled individuals they inherently assume that disabled people are incapable of making sound political choices and essentially disregard disabled people’s right to assert themselves. An illustrative example of the flip side of this lesson is when the narrator from the movie When Billy Broke His Head attempts to run for a local political position and is completely ignored (B & Simpson D.E 1995).
The general consensus amongst disability advocacy groups is that disability is a socially constructed concept relative to culture and time. This means that if society tells the individual that he/she is disabled, then that person is disabled regardless of self-image and independence in society (Charlton p.8). We see that if one unpacks this concept of disability, the definition bears similarities to W.E.B Dubois’s famous definition of a black man as “a person who must ride “Jim Crow” in Georgia” (Randall 2008). In other words, one became black when society defined one as black. Because disability is a socially constructed and stratifying concept, the goal for the more radical advocates of “Nothing About Us Without Us” was to reshape the idea of disability by having full involvement and control over the concept. Thus, “Nothing About Us Without Us”, requires anyone attempting to take action or represent disability to consult the community first. The disability community itself thereby becomes the grand arbiter and authority of material and policies on disability issues. Although this might seem like a fair and just idea at first, a dilemma than arises when trying to disentangle the consequences of a literal interpretation of the policy.
Does being a part of a group give one authority to censor everything said and created about the group? It seems here that although the disability community is attempting to counteract stratification on their basic humanity, the policy goes against the constitutional right to freedom of speech. A core component of democracy is the freedom to deliberate (Mbali 2011) and the absence of censorship. If people were to consult the African-American community every time they wished to publish or discuss issues related to black people there would be an instant rise in free speech court cases. The fact that people are part of a certain group does not give them the legal or logical justification to control everything said about that group. As a matter of fact, if every subgroup decided to run the “Nothing About Us Without Us” policy, it would lead to the elimination of free speech since every group would wish to control and censor what others published about them.
Furthermore, the “Nothing About Us Without Us” policy assumes that the group always knows what is best for itself. Such a claim is especially controversial when dealing with disability because the group also includes people with emotional, intellectual, and cognitive disabilities. When unpacking this notion of knowing what’s best for one’s own group we find that it is similar to the discussion of individual group rights found in works regarding multiculturalism. If we look at the notion of self governance we find that scholars have written extensively on the concept of guarding one’s own identity but depending on how one views society and the goals for society the outcome of the discussion will vary. Generally the discussion can be broken into pro group rights or pro assimilation. Because the disability community is, in fact, a community, and it believes itself to be an outcome of human variation, and in addition wishes to be heard in legislative and political discussion, one can treat the disabled community as its own cultural minority group. This means, for the sake of argument, that we can group disabled people together with other minority groups such as Blacks, Latinos, Mormons, Jews, Pacific Islanders, Muslims, homosexuals, and the list goes on. If one takes the position that the disabled community is a cultural identity (which the deaf community in particular has extensively argued) (A. Padden p.509-510)) then according to influential scholars such as Will Kymlicka, Cornel West, and Susan Moller Okin, the disabled community is entitled to special group rights. Will Kymlicka argues in his text Multicultural Citizenship (1995) that groups that have been previously self-legislative and have their own distinct language and set of cultural beliefs and traditions should be granted special rights within society as long as any of the previous mentioned distinctions do not oppress the rights of the individuals within those groups (p. 152). If we look at the deaf community as an example, all of the previous set conditions then apply to their community especially when considering the unique cultural practice of sign language. Kymlicka defines the bar for common functional co-existence to be freedom of the individual, the acceptance of difference, and democracy as the overall form of rule (p. 153). Kymlicka’s argument overall fits fine with the agenda of the disability community the problem arises when the disabled community asks for one of their special group rights to be the ability to censor discussion about their community as seen through the extreme version of “Nothing About Us Without Us”. The result is a form of censorship, an idea that goes against Kymlicka’s argument of what rights can be granted in a fair multicultural society and inherently creates a dilemma. On the one side, we wish to acknowledge the disability community as a unique and worthy social group and give them the group rights they thereby are entitled to, but on the other hand we find a problem with one of the rights that the group demands because it philosophically hinders our freedom of speech and thereby the basic foundations of democracy. Kymlicka argues extensively that multiculturalism cannot exist without liberalism because multiculturalism springs out of liberalism (p. 156). Liberalism therefore becomes one of the required ideals to embrace in order to have a group co-exist with other groups in the multicultural society. The problem occurs when a group embracing liberal values attempts to co-exist with a group that does not. Kymlicka argues that a group or majority group has no right to impose its liberal values on to a minority group that does not accept them but a dialogue should always be initiated (p. 171). This means that society has to acknowledge the disabled community as a cultural group (which is not a problem) but also acknowledge and embrace their request for a seemingly illiberal policy. The disabled community wishes to be included and has, in fact, steadily been more and more included in general society. As the disabled community becomes increasingly more involved in multicultural society (especially in the American context) it has to adapt and participate in the debate other groups are subject to. ‘
The question of who can discuss and portray disability becomes even more entangled when taking the feminist perspective on multiculturalism into account. According to feminist scholar Susan Moller Okin (1999), every society is created from a framework that keeps men in power and women submissive. All traditions created through those cultures reflect this power relationship. This inherently means that all traditions are in one way or the other sexist (p.4-5). Since disability is created or born under the subjectivity of cultures, the disabled community can be included within this discussion. Although this seems rather radical, Okin suggests an either complete redefinition of cultural practices (p. 9) or a complete reset of culture in order to create an egalitarian society (p. 9). For the disabled community this means that when looking at the “Nothing About Us Without Us” policy, the disabled community has the responsibility to make sure that their own conduct and cultural norms are redefined to take feminism into account and to ensure that content published on disability also respectfully represents disabled woman. Furthermore, the “Nothing About Us Without Us” policy poses a problem in relation to feminism because it presupposes a hierarchy within which certain individuals in the community get to choose what is a good representation of disability and what is not. According to Okin’s theory, any hierarchy already existing within society is sexist, and in this regard, the disabled community is no exception.
When examining disability in relation to multiculturalism and modern society, the discussion of cultural expression as a tool for empowerment becomes important because minority communities historically and currently use different artistic outlets to bring forth their political agenda. A great example of such an outlet would be the way rap music historically served as a voice for disenfranchised youth in Los Angles in the 1990s (Perkins 202). Professor Cornel West argues in his article The New Cultural Politics of Difference (1992) that cultural workers in the 21st century should reject the old conception of art and culture, and instead embrace a new canon that accepts and praises the expressions of cultures from all layers of society in order to reach social equality. This conduct will then eventually lead to an insurrection of a new society (West p.1). West argues that rejecting the old conceptions of art will ultimately lead to a more socially and economically equal society and will represent social groups in a more truthful manner. It will create a society no longer built upon power structures established by centuries of white European dominance (West p.19). The elimination of such power will also lead to the elimination of other concepts such as ableism and the invisibility of disability which is what the DRM is essentially fighting to achieve. The problem with “Nothing About Us Without Us” in the context of Cornel West’s cultural project and the liberation of minority groups through art is that the policy creates a hierarchy of what is considered “good” art for the disability community both externally and internally. If we look at this externally it becomes apparent that the simple placement of a value bar that publications have to pass to be considered “worthy” of representing disability counteracts Cornel West’s argument because it creates a power structure for other groups to fight against. Put more simply if other groups have to ask for permission or live up to a certain standard to publish something about someone else, then the controlling group is putting themselves in the seat of the very oppressing majority that the New Cultural Politics of Difference attempts to reject. The disability community desires empowerment and inclusion, but the use of a policy like “Nothing About Us Without Us” will counteract the mechanics that will bring them equality. Simply put being the only group demanding censorship is counterproductive.
This problem becomes even more apparent when looking at the internal hierarchy that a narrow interpretation of a policy like “Nothing About Us Without Us” creates. The policy requires that outsiders take the disability community into account and include them when making choices concerning the disability community but that same community is enormous, highly diverse and structured into many smaller unites with different causes. All of these characteristics make it difficult to properly engage with the group as a whole. “Nothing About Us Without Us” demands homogenization and requires an authority to make the decision of how the disability community sees any work that concerns it. This means that someone has to be in charge of making those verdicts while others in the disabled community are not. Can a blind person speak on behalf of a wheelchair user? Is an intellectually-challenged individual eligible to speak on behalf of people with cerebral palsy? How would such a board of officials be organized? If “Nothing About Us Without Us” is to be read in its purest form, it requires that every single disability known to man be present and represented within such an organization. This again creates a problem of definition, and leads to the question of who exactly is disabled or even disabled enough? Is the HIV/Aids community considered part of disability? What about the elderly or the obese populations? The question of which subgroups are considered part of the larger group makes a significant difference for a policy like “Nothing About Us Without Us” because it defines the overall opinion on disability. In terms of West’s article, the internal hierarchy that the policy requires will counteract the idea of free sub-cultural expression and insurrection for the same reasons it hinders it externally. If “Nothing About Us Without Us” is fully implemented, it means that not only outside sources will have to consult the community; disabled people wishing to express disability will have to do so as well.
In her article: “Should Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent ‘Yes’”, Jane Mansbridge (1999) concludes that minority groups have the right to and should represent themselves in the political sphere if they have a history of being disenfranchised (p.654). Descriptive representation is a powerful tool for a community if it has a history of being oppressed or ignored and it is therefore understandable that the disabled community has created a policy like “Nothing About Us Without Us”. Inclusion is the way to empowerment, but as we have seen, the extreme version of the policy poses numerous problems when put into the perspective of multiculturalism and democracy. As disability studies have shown, there is indeed a general misrepresentation and lack of understanding from the general public regarding disability and in order for such misrepresentation to end the disabled community has to be involved and must obtain their own strong voice. This being said, obtaining such a voice should not come from a method that in its purest form limits the freedom and democratic rights of other groups. Instead of trying to control what others publish about disability, the community should rather be concerned with publishing their own material and in that way prove that the disability community is capable, strong, intellectual, diverse, and un-ignorable as we have previously seen with movies like Murder Ball (2005).
Works Cited
Charlton, James I. Nothing about Us without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment. Berkeley: University of California, 1998. Print.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. “Disability and Representation.” Proceedings of the Conference on Disability Studies and University (2005). Print.
Kudlick, C.J. “Disability History, Power, and Rethinking the Idea of “other”” Proceedings of the Conference on Disability Studies and the University. 7 Mar. 2005. Web. 2011.
Kitchin, Rob. “The Researched Opinions on Research: Disabled People and Disability Research.” Disability & Society.University ofIreland, 2000. Web. 13 Dec. 2011. <http://www.benschweitzer.org/WORK/disabilities_seniors/Kitchin-disabled%20people%20and%20disability%20reserach.pdf>.
Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship: a Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. Print.
Mansbridge, Jane. “Blacks Represent Blacks and Women Represent Women? A Contingent “Yes”” The Journal of Politics. Harvard University, 1999. Web. 2011. <http://www.jstor.org/pss/2647821>.
Mbali, Mandisa. “Comparative Politics Fall 2011.” Comparative Politics Fall 2011. Mary Mount Manhattan College, New York. 2011.
McIver, Denise L., and William Perkins. Droppin’ Science: Straight-up Talk from Hip Hop’s Greatest Voices. New York: Three Rivers, 2002. Print.
Michaels, Walter Benn. The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality. New York, NY: Metropolitan, 2006. Print.
Million Dollar Baby. Dir. Clint Eastwood. By Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman. Filmax Home Video, 2005. DVD.
Moller Okin, Susan. “Susan Moller Okin: Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?” Boston Review — Home. Web. 26 Nov. 2011. <http://www.bostonreview.net/BR22.5/okin.html>.
Murderball. Dir. H.A Rubin. Perf. Mark Zupan. Paramount Pictures, 2005. DVD.
Padden, Carol A. “Talking Culture Deaf People and Disability Studies.” Proceedings of the Conference on Disability Studies and University. Print.
Kennedy, Randall. “Sellout (washingtonpost.com).” Washington Post: Breaking News, World, US, DC News & Analysis. Pantheon, 11 Jan. 2008. Web. 03 Feb. 2012. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/sellout.htm
Longmore, Paul K. Why I Burned My Book and Other Essays on Disability. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2003. Print.
Valle, Jan W., and David J. Connor. Rethinking Disability: a Disability Studies Approach to Inclusive Practices. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.
Sound and Fury. Dir. Josh Aronson. Prod. Josh Aronson and Roger Weisberg. Perf. Jaime Leigh Allen, Jemma Braham, Freeda Cat. Artistic License, 2001. DVD.
West, Cornel, and Charles C. Lemert. The New Cultural Politics of Difference. 1992. Print.
When Billy Broke His Head And Other Tales Of Wonder. Dir. D.E Simpson and B. Golfus. Independent Television Service and Corporation, 1995. DVD.
Education Reform
Probably one of the best videos on education I have seen in a while. A good education is not only a right it is the number one crucial factor for the improvement of human life on this planet. Knowledge is power, and knowledge is opportunity, everyone deserves it
Anything Can And Will Be Turned Into A Commodity
Anything Can And Will Be Turned Into A Commodity
Not only is this article interesting because it tells a good story about prejudice, assumptions, and how friendships can be made across class, gender, race, culture, education etc. But it also shows that bureaucratic organization, enterprise, and capitalism happens everywhere across economic groups and places. Further if unregulated anything will be turned into a commodity no matter how destructive and unethical it is (drugs, weapons, GMO’s and the list goes on). In other words on a grand scale as a society we need to be more conscious about what we can allow to be produced in the name of profit rather in the name of the people. So should healthcare be allowed to be a commodity?Education? Knowledge? Transportation?
You get what I am starting to get at?
you start to get what I am trying to say…..
Everybody Wants To Be A Cat Because A Cats The Only Cat.. That brainwash Adults And Children Alike
It is not news to most people that Disney movies are not only racist, they are also sexist, discriminate against the disabled community advocate violence and social obedience. If you are in doubt about this it is very easy to find one out of the hundreds of Youtube videos easily showing this. But what is an even bigger problem is that they are made in a way that manipulates adults just as much as children.
or watch this short clip from Sword In The Stone.
In this clip from Sword In Stone one clearly see the Walt Disney perception of the concepts: desirable and undesirable. Both are manifested through the transforming Madam Mim.
- Old, short, fat, Angry=undesirable to society
- Tall, skinny, busty, tiny waste, big eyes, flirty, willing= desirable
But what is even more scary is the fact that all though we know that many children’s films are racist, sexist discriminatory etc. we still consume them like pop-corn in a movie theater (you cant stop eating until the container is empty). Why? Because much like fast food these films are build on a formula that is very hard to resist. Fast food has the addicting salt, sugar, fat and caffeine combination, children’s film have the cute, catchy, quiet combination
This is just as dangerous for the brain
as this is
The equation goes :cute+catchy+quiet-time=subliminal brainwashing of adults.
Lets dissect this equation and start by looking at quiet-time: Anybody who is a parent or have, (like me) spend an extensive amount of time caring for and living with children will realize that movies are an effective tool in the struggle for peace and quiet. Need to clean up the house? Time to make those little devils dinner? Need an hour to get that last draft for work done? Send those emails? Make that phone call? It is all-most magical how children can be suddenly captivated for hours in front of the screen, and so in our desperate need for a little tranquility we allow them to sit and consume outdated morality, racism and flawed gender norms. Slow subconscious socialization into a conservative mind set. All because filmmakers know just how thinly a parent or caretakers patience can be stretched in the course of a day.
Please go the fuck to sleep or just be quiet at least
Lets look at Mulan. A young woman who cannot fit in with the rest of her female peers. The opportunity show’s and she throws her self into a lethal adventure saves her family, becomes a hero, only to return to her village get married and fall right back into conventional gender norms of the obedient woman. The movie teaches us that it is “okay” to deviate from the set patterns of society if it means saving those same patterns and then returning to them. Mulan get’s married becomes a good wife and everyone is happy.
My problem with Mulan and all of her Disney colleagues is not that they portray values that I do not agree with. The real problem is that children and parents take in these values defenselessly because of the cute coating of these movies. My own mother attested to this earlier when we where trying to analyze the message behind Aristocat’s (which essentially is a movie about class difference). My mother realized that she often had sad down with my sister and I mindlessly enjoying these movies without thinking critically about them because they where supposed to be “for kids” People do not expect to be intellectually challenged because when watching children’s films which in essence is how they get you!
But it doesn’t stop here. People tend to put their intellectual guard down because children movies in general are packed with cute, funny, like-able, characters, often animals. These characters are so hard to become mad at because they are funny, adorable, and trigger the “awww so cute” mechanism in our brains. How could such things possible be racist? Could a new born kitten really advocate racism??
Please more tax breaks for the rich, sell more arms to rouge states, water boarding torture is okay, because I am cute
The brainwashing and manipulation becomes even harder to resist when one realizes that children’s film often have incredibly catchy music. I randomly stumbled over the Jazz scene from Aristocat’s which inspired me to write this little article. Even while writing this I have been unable to get the song out of my head. Even though i know the scene where all the cats are playing jazz and having a blast has racist, elitist, and sexist messages bashing right in my face I still tap my foot and hum: “Everybody, everybody, everybody wants to be a cat ” Inequality is so much harder to resist when it sounds great.
As we have seen childrens movies are dangerous weapons for subliminal indoctrination of immoral values, but are generally accepted because they are hard to resist because they are cute, have catchy music, and provide parents with some quiet time. It is further also easy to fall into the assumption that material produced for kids does not have intellectual messages when in fact it is quite the contrary – Most television produced for children and young adults holds a fist full of messages you just need to decode them
The lesson learned here can be drawn to other aspects of life in general. Especially Politics and philosophy (which you should know by now that I enjoy reading and writing about). Never assume that something does not have a secondary motive just because it is pleasing and seem harmless. There is always an alternative motive to any action: Obama signing a weapons deal with Iraq is probably not just to create jobs or protect the Iraqis – it is strategic leverage in the middle east in order to gain oil
In other words never shut off your brain even when stuff is cute, funny, and have a catchy beat
The Thing 1982 remake
This is the best re-make of a classic Hollywood film I have seen in a while. the 2011 remake of this sci-fi milestone not only contains the best actors of our time but also recaptures the feel and environment of the original while still managing to update the film with modern computer animation techniques. A must have for fans of horror, sci-fi, and action.
A great American poet once said: “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard and their like its better than yours” All though this statement seemed very catchy and rather straight forward it had a much deeper and controversial meaning. It was in essence a warning of the system in which we find our selves captured within !! (Dramatic music plays in the background)
Where should I begin. As a big fan of karaoke, (A habit I picked up after experiencing the decadent city life of NYC), I have discovered many lost and forgotten songs that really gets the crowd going every time. Milkshake by Kelis is one of those songs. But as I sat down to myself one night letting my thoughts drift I realized that I did not know why everyone loves to bring all the boys (or girls) to the yard. Is it because they believe that their personal Milkshake is better than everyone else’s? Is it that they love to charge? All though these reasons seemed sufficient at first my philosophical spider sense started to tingle and I realized that things went deeper than what I thought at first.
Milkshake is the description of the human struggle for control and power nicely disguised. Wrapped in sex and lactose the song beautifully describes a sensation which most people desire to feel: power and dominance – which is exactly why the song is a hit (apart from its catchy beat which is another article). Our girl describes a scenario in which the protagonist is in complete control over a seemingly infinite amount of people: All the “boys” want to obtain the mysterious milkshake and all the girls want to learn how to acquire this skill of manipulation. In a sense Milkshake by Kelis describes the sensation of world dominance through erotic manipulation.
sarah palin also enjoys listening to Milkshake
The type of dominance described in Milkshake is interesting because it is a form of control grounded in the individuals appearance . Kelis would not be able to bring all the boys to the yard were she not genetically created so hmmm how should I put it fruitfully. All though the song mentions a certain method to use these faculties to their maximum capacity it is evident that not everyone can hold this power since it is first and mostly created from ones body:
You must maintain your charm,
Same time maintain your halo,
Just get the perfect blend,
Plus what you have within,
Then next his eyes are squint,
Then he’s picked up your scent
As we can see from the lyrics the power of the milkshake is a combination of acquired skill (maintaining ones halo and charm) and birth given faculties (looking attractive). Milkshake hereby describes an inherent inequality in the world that we have not yet been able to eliminate spite our best efforts. Some might say that we are doing everything we can to perpetuate this inequality in modern society. Some people are unfortunately more attractive than others. Some people have Milkshake others do not. Personally I am hopelessly dedicated to a far more optimistic version of reality and believe that every human being is beautiful if we just look with the right glasses. But from the Lyrics kelis does not seem to share this view with me.
Logically from the statements about power relations found In Milkshake we can draw the following conclusions:
- Humans naturally seek power
- Power inherently creates a hierarchy between people
- Power has intrinsic value
- Kelis has a lot in common with darth sidious (also better known as the Emperor)
POWER!
From the lyrics found in Milkshake we see that people naturally seek power. Everyone wishes to obtain the ability to create Milkshake that brings all the people of the opposite sex to the yard. Everyone wish to be autonomous (self governing) but only the person who holds the highest level of control within a system can be truly free. Everyone else is somehow influenced by others whether it is being brought to the yard or having to pay to be taught how to bring people to the yard. Power therefore creates natural barriers between people. Between those who have the currency to get charged and those who do not. Further some people will never be able to bring boys to the yard because they do not have the first premise of power which is the physical appearance of Kelis.
We further see from the song that it is not the economic surplus gained from charging milkshake lessons that seems to matter to the protagonists. Neither is it the ability to copulate with the many men/boys that truly matters. What is seen as the highest level of achievement in the song Milkshake is the ability to control the masses of men. The ultimate goal is put not in what is done with the boys that are brought to the yard but rather in the fact that they are indeed coming to the yard in the first place. Once they are in the yard they can be freely manipulated. We see that what truly has value for Kelis is power not currency or physical “entertainment”. The boys may worship her and want her but that is not a end in it self it is a means to and end – power over the boys – Power over everyone.
When comparing Kelis to other great thinkers out there one sees that her views on power and the goals of life has a lot in common with two people Adam smith and a certain Darth Sedious whom once said:
He became so powerful, the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which, eventually of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It’s ironic. He could save others from death… but not himself.
(20th Century Fox 2005)
In the same way that the Dark sith lord obtains ultimate power kelis does this with her milkshake and holds on to it by all means necessary. She is so reluctant to loose any of this power so she “charges” to give away the smallest piece of advice. But as we see, as the song progresses, she does end up giving away tips (maintain ones charm same time maintains ones halo) which eventually will lead to her demise by the end of the song.
As we can see Kelis and her Milkshake represents a rather unique twist on utilitarianism. The goals is to obtain as much power as possible. Instead of the greatest happiness Principle as stated by John Stuart Mill, we see a Greatest Power principle. The song is in a sense a very sexy sounding rephrasing of laissez faire capitalism. The one with the greatest Milkshake get’s to charge for the product, the rest will be out-competed. It is survival of the sexiest!
As we see Milkshake is a camouflaged expression of unchecked capitalism
Milkshake is fundamentally a description of a unchecked capitalist system with power as the ultimate currency in which the competing players has been left unregulated for so long that one has achieved monopoly over the entire market. One person is able to bring all the boys to the yard!
America this was a warning, an omen of the financial crisis and what happens if Wallstreet is left unregulated. The evidence was all right there in front of us. People where dancing to it, singing along, making out to this song, but no one stopped to wonder… What does this really mean. Kelis warned us in her own sexy way in 2003 of what was going to happened but we failed to analyze her words correctly.
What frightens me even more is that all this mainstream music being put out these days often portray more or less the same message. Life is about getting rich, having many cars, and many (excuse me my langauge) bitches, living large and spending without thinking. Jay-Z Recently said on the song In Paris: “What’s 50 grand to a muhf*ka like me
Can you please remind me? (Roc-A-Fella 2011) In other words: spend, consume, spend, consume, spend, consume. We are being reduced to mere robots consuming products in a system that is dependent on our attachment to material and superficial living.
So the next time you order a milkshake or find your self running to the yard ask yourself: Is this really the type of reality I want to live under?
2012 is time for change
Happy New Year
Bboy Redkid – 5 Crew Dynasty
theadventuresofredkid 